Lost channels

[shudman]

Live in southern England, and have had freesat for eons - using a small dish and Windows Media Center with a dual DVT-B and a DVB-S card in a standard PC. Until last week, all was good....but now have no channels via the DVB-S (Hauppauge) card. It is configured for Astra 2A-B-D (28.2'E) Eurobird1, and was fine - don't believe the dish has moved, the card seems to be "happy" with no errors. Any clues on how to troubleshoot the issue ? Have used a separate app (capture4me) to see if I see channels....still nothing. So, PC card, cable or dish/lnb ? Any way to determine ?

 

[Channel Hopper]

Does your television have a satellite tuner in it (Freesat compatible ) ?

Does the dish outside look as though it is in the same place ?

A picure or two might help.

 

[Channel Hopper]

An old sky box in the loft ?

 

[shudman]

There is no freesat tuner in the TV. The dish does not look like it has moved - it is pretty securely mounted on the chimney. No sky box, ever.

Dish-->coax-->HauppaugePCcard - nothing more complicated than that. The Media Center PC has the drivers for the TV card, and the Media Center software displays the channels. I have tried capture4me software (to exclude the Media center software), and that too, scans for the channels and finds nothing...you can see it scanning just nothing gets found.

 

[Llew]

Have you a multimeter handy to check whether you have a voltage at the card's LNB terminal?

~14V or 18V depending on output polarity.

 

[jeallen01]

Possibly:
- Sat coax is damaged &/or water has got into on or more of the F-connectors (especially the one on the bottom of the LNB if it was not properly sealed on installation)
- LNB now faulty (could also be water damage if the plastic cover on the end pointing at the dish is damaged - prolonged strong sunlight can cause that) - rare but it does happen.
- In the PC, the Hauppage card might need reseating in its slot to "clean" the edge connector as it's been there a lot time and there is minor corrosion (and/or it had simply moved a bit and some connections are not now making properly) - many of us have had that problem over the years with other plug-in cards and so on.

 

[shudman]

Have you a multimeter handy to check whether you have a voltage at the card's LNB terminal?

~14V or 18V depending on output polarity.

Just at the female connector from the card, you mean ? I assume dc ?

 

[Llew]

Just at the female connector from the card, you mean ? I assume dc ?

Yes, it's DC power to the LNB together with polarity switching. Carefully insert a pin/needle into the centre connector and apply your +ve lead to it, with your -ve lead to the LNB terminal outer. Be careful not to short the probes.

 

[shudman]

Some things to try, for sure....and appreciate the pointers. If radio stations are working, but TV are not....would that not indicate that this maybe a tuner card issue ? Stupidly, did not mention that in the earlier post, sorry.

 

[Mickha]

Which radio stations?
On satellite receivers you can switch between radio, and television, if you accidentally select radio then TV doesn't work, until you change it back, does your player software have this option?

 

[shudman]

Which radio stations?
On satellite receivers you can switch between radio, and television, if you accidentally select radio then TV doesn't work, until you change it back, does your player software have this option?

I looked, and the radio channels are using the freeVIEW tuner, not the freesat tuner....so red herring, sorry.

 

[shudman]

Well, no dc voltage (at all!) on the F-connector on the PC card....so, I am guessing the PCcard has had its day ? I remember some time (months) ago, unscrewing the coax from the card and getting a slight "tingle", like a mini shock....I am assuming this was the power feeding the LNB. Wouldn't have thought the current was significant enough to feel...but it was.

 

[jeallen01]

Well, no dc voltage (at all!) on the F-connector on the PC card....so, I am guessing the PCcard has had its day ? I remember some time (months) ago, unscrewing the coax from the card and getting a slight "tingle", like a mini shock....I am assuming this was the power feeding the LNB. Wouldn't have thought the current was significant enough to feel...but it was.

The "tingle" probably wasn't due to the LNB voltage current (which are both too low to felt for most people), but to the fact that there are Radio Interference suppression capacitors on the mains circuits of the computer itself because they "leak" very small currents onto the chassis thereof, and that results in a "smallish" voltage between the chassis and "true earth/ground". Almost every piece of such kit has that and it's rarely an actual "issue" - you can "feel" it because your body is not totally isolated from "true earth/ground", but it's nothing to "worry about"..

 

[Llew]

Well, no dc voltage (at all!) on the F-connector on the PC card....so, I am guessing the PCcard has had its day ?

Could be as jeallen01 says the PC card edge connectors have become tarnished, so reseating might clean them.

Also, a chance that the card's short circuit protection has failed if by any chance your LNB or cable developed a short, temporary or permanent. It has happened to me - A TBS5925 failed due to my inadvertent (read clumsy) cable shorting, and an old Technisat Skystar card I had didn't even have any current overload protection. Not sure about the Hauppauges though.

 

[Analoguesat]

Its not something as simple as the transmission parameters on some of the transponders has changed? Cards dont auto update like Sky / Freesat receivers do

FlySat Astra 2E/2F/2G @ 28.2° East

www.flysat.com